At 0118hrs UTC the PRB Team was informed that their Vendée Globe race skipper Kevin Escoffier (PRB) has been rescued by fellow Vendée Globe competitor Jean Le Cam (Yes We Cam!).
Escoffier had to abandon his IMOCA 60 PRB following damage yesterday afternoon around 1346hrs UTC and took to his liferaft some 840 nautical miles SW of Cape Town.
The rescue mission was coordinated from Les Sables d’Olonne by Vendée Globe Race Direction in collaboration with CROSS Griz Nez and MRCC South Africa. The President of PRB, Jean-Jacques Laurent was at the Race HQ with race director Jacques Caraës and the race direction team assisting through the entire process.
“He’s on board with Jean!” These short words came as a huge relief for the whole team, for Escoffier’s family and all those involved in the Vendée Globe
Kevin has so far only been seen aboard YesWeCam via live video as Jean Le Cam had his video system connected during all the search operations. No one has yet been able to talk with the PRB skipper who just appeared smiling, bundled up in his survival suit alongside Jean Le Cam.
on the poe party discord, we were discussing an au where lenore is a mermaid and h.g is a sailor who meets her while out at sea, and i ended up making this moodboard for it:
Guided by Race Direction Le Cam arrived on zone around 1615hrs UTC and quickly established visual and voice contact with Escoffier who was in his liferaft but he was unable to retrieve him in the big, 5m, seas and 20-25 knot winds.
As he was manoeuvring to prepare to get closer to the liferaft Le Cam lost sight of the liferaft and could not establish radio contact nor to pick up the signal from the AIS the range of which was reduced by the heavy seas.
He lost sight of Escoffier in the dying light but has continued to try and locate him, Le Cam is communicating regularly with Race Direction and the rescue authorities. The three other skippers are now in, or are approaching the search area. The positioning of Kevin Escoffier’s personal beacon (AIS MOB Man Over Board) emits HF radiowaves and will only be detected in the local zone.
The four skippers will follow a protocol established by Race Direction in coordination with Jean Le Cam. They will approach with three reefs in the mainsail and the engine idling. A grid search area for the zone has been established and will be carried out by the four IMOCAs who are set to provide assistance.
The PRB shore crew said that besides his AIS Mob, Kevin Escoffier also means to signal his presence in the liferaft. Daybreak tomorrow morning is around 0340hrs UTC in this zone and the search will be ongoing.
Phrases like “lost sight”, “try and locate”, and “grid search area” make me very nervous. Daybreak is about five and a half hours from now.
There’s a lot of yacking by interested online sailing fans, but not much information. All we know for sure is:
* le Cam arrived on scene and reported that he’d seen Kevin in his liferaft, and was going to start his engine and attempt to recover him.
* Darkness fell with no public updates. There was some chatter about le Cam having had engine trouble, or having had problems maneuvering under power, but it’s not clear if that was based on actual radio communication or is just the Internet being chatty.
* The Vendée Globe race authority asked two more skippers (Yannick Bestaven and Boris Herrmann, the latter aboard Malizia, the same skipper and boat that gave Greta Thunberg her westbound trans-Atlantic ride last summer) to divert to the area to assist.
* Later the race authority also requested that Sébastien Simon divert to the area.
* Conditions are rough and windy, but expected to moderate somewhat by morning.
So that’s where we are. It sounds (though this is all guesswork) like PRB sank relatively quickly, forcing Kevin into his liferaft (hopefully in a survival suit). le Cam was unable to recover him before darkness fell, and presumably is standing by, hopefully in the vicinity of the raft, until morning, when another attempt can be made.
Some Sailing Anarchy discussion currently centers on the reaching-back-and-forth track of le Cam’s boat, with a mile or so on each of the legs, and whether that looks like a search pattern or just someone hanging around a known location without doing too many maneuvers. Who knows? (Well, presumably one or more people in the middle of the south Atlantic know, and maybe a few more people in radio communication with them. But other than that, it’s wait and see.)
Kevin is a badass, a pro sailor who’s been around the world multiple times. In fully-crewed races he works the pointy end of the boat, which is not a place for the faint of heart. But being in a liferaft for 12 hours in the Southern Ocean is no joke. All of them, but especially Kevin, are certainly battling fatigue and hypothermia.
Kevin Escoffier, 40, who is racing in third place in the Vendée Globe solo non-stop around the world race, positioned some 550 nautical miles SW of Cape Town, has triggered his distress beacon. He was racing in a strong SW’ly air stream on starboard tack behind a weather front.
At 1346hrs (UTC), Escoffier managed to send a message to his shore team, explaining that he had an ingress of water into his boat. The rescue authorities (MRCC Cape Town and CROSS Griz Nez) are preparing an action plan in collaboration with his PRB shore team, with Jacques Caraës and the Vendée Globe Race Direction team.
Jean Le Cam, the nearest competitor, has changed course to sail to the last position given by the boat when the beacon was triggered (40°55 S 9°18 E). Le Cam is expected to reach the area at around 1600hrs UTC. More information to follow.
So le Cam, the nearest competitor, was on the scene as of 45 minutes ago. It sounds like PRB may have sunk? I guess Kevin could be in his liferaft as a precautionary measure, but the standard advice is always that you want to step up into a lifeboat, which makes me think the boat could well be gone.
I was momentarily confused by the translation “will unplug his engine”, but then I realized it’s probably referring to race seals on the propulsion system, which le Cam is going to break so he can use the engine to aid in recovering Kevin.
Eesh. In 40 knots of wind in the far south Atlantic, basically in the Southern Ocean. The margin for error here is very small.
Kevin Escoffier, 40, who is racing in third place in the Vendée Globe solo non-stop around the world race, positioned some 550 nautical miles SW of Cape Town, has triggered his distress beacon. He was racing in a strong SW’ly air stream on starboard tack behind a weather front.
At 1346hrs (UTC), Escoffier managed to send a message to his shore team, explaining that he had an ingress of water into his boat. The rescue authorities (MRCC Cape Town and CROSS Griz Nez) are preparing an action plan in collaboration with his PRB shore team, with Jacques Caraës and the Vendée Globe Race Direction team.
Jean Le Cam, the nearest competitor, has changed course to sail to the last position given by the boat when the beacon was triggered (40°55 S 9°18 E). Le Cam is expected to reach the area at around 1600hrs UTC. More information to follow.
Charlie Dalin, the Vendée Globe race leader, should pass the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope tomorrow, the first of the mythical 24,296 nautical miles solo round the world’s three Great Capes.
Dalin’s lead remains steady ahead of Thomas Ruyant (LinkedOut) while Jean Le Cam (Yes We Cam!) and Kevin Escoffier (PRB) have been trading third place during today. With the lead pack now as far south as 42° latitude, Sam Davies on Initiatives-Coeur reports how the game is changing:
“I gybed just before Gough Island, in the clement zone close behind the front with 25 knots of wind but rapidly the breeze built and the instability arrived. It felt a little bit close to Gough Island for comfort so I furled the A7 in order to sail a clear enough course to pass safely to the South West of Gough. “My feeling was correct as rapidly I encountered the first big gust – 40 knots of wind. The sea state has built. When the breeze goes from 25 to 40 in the middle of the night for the first time, you get caught by surprise! So a little ‘wipe out’ (thank goodness the A7 was already furled!) and Initiatives-Coeur lay flat on her side with a nice cold wave breaking over her!
“Ease all the sheets and back on our feet (that too is a scary maneuver as you have to bear away but not too far so as to avoid a Chinese Gybe on the way out!)
“So then the tricky bit is to find a trim and sail set-up for 22 to 42 knots of wind speed! That’s not easy, when you are sailing solo and you need to rest a little and not stay all night in the cockpit with the sheets in your (cold) hands! It’s a frustrating compromise with a lot of time ‘down speed’ and other heart-palpitating moments of extreme acceleration down waves with a little too much wind.
“Inevitably, I did a few more little wipe-outs, but the night is over, nothing is broken and the average wind speed is starting to drop… later I should be able to deploy a bigger sail and get going a bit faster. The albatrosses that are gliding around in my wake are having fun! In the meantime, I am going to put a thicker pair of socks on because my feet are blocks of ice!”
